Time Lived Without Its Flow: Denise Riley, Max Porter, Emily Berry
London Review Bookshop Podcast
00:00
Ben Johnson's Poem for His Dead Son
I'm sitting here trying to remember Ben Johnson's elegy. His son died when he was seven and I think what Ben Johnson says in his poem for his dead son is here lies what's the effect of here lies my best work of poetry. The generation of the dead boy is the best. In your book though I also slightly imagine the dead boy answering back and saying I won't be used in such a way. The dead boy would just laugh like a drain really. Does it unnerve you now when you read back to your selected poems? I don't know if you have or did you just hand them over. Some of those early poems that addressed this.
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